Welcome to Ayutthaya ☺️

Today the journey continued to 'Ayutthaya' 😊 - to the old royal city🤴🏾 That meant the alarm clock went off at 7:00 am🙈. We had ordered a taxi for 9:15 am to take us to the train station 🙃! Everything went perfectly and the train arrived on time too 😁. It was cleaned before departure and the windows were cleaned from the outside👍. We looked around on the platform and were amazed. There were men sitting on plastic chairs getting their hair cut. It looked strange, but many Thais do that. The journey from Bangkok to Ayutthaya was scheduled for 1:30 hours! We had booked a seat in the air-conditioned class 😉! The journey was not particularly spectacular🙂.

When we arrived in Ayutthaya, people were surprised to see two penguins 🐧 coming out of the train 🙉. The air conditioning in the train was amazing. Luckily, we had long clothes with us and I also wore a hat. Daniela had wrapped herself in a scarf🙈. The Thais who boarded found us extremely funny🙃!

In the train station, they naturally wanted to rip off two tourist girls. They demanded an exorbitant amount of money for the tuk-tuk ride. I almost got angry and we just walked away. A Thai woman ran after us and said, "I will drive you for the price you offered." We don't mind if you bargain, but the audacity and cheekiness of this group at the train station were such that you can only turn around and leave.

We were taken to our resort with our tuk-tuk driver. It is incredibly beautiful here. We are in the middle of nature, with a lake around us, and our sea villa is built on stilts. The balcony overlooks the lake🤗 and coconut trees🙂. A small bird is nesting on our external Wi-Fi router🤗.

We ordered a tuk-tuk for a half-day temple tour and went to the first temple right away ☺️. It reminded me of Angkor (Cambodia): a huge area with various temple complexes. It was hot again today, and the humidity was even worse than in Bangkok 😩. But let me mention right here, it is amazing to experience all of this and it is definitely worth the effort 🤗!

The temples on our itinerary were very impressive and, of course, had many stairs to climb 😂. In one temple complex, particular wall paintings were pointed out. We climbed up this temple and inside, there was a steep staircase going down. Daniela immediately said, "Come on, let's go down there." No way, absolutely not, I'll stay up here and wait for you. A Japanese guy then went down with Daniela. I was surprised when the Japanese guy came back up after a short time, but Daniela didn't. I called down, "Is everything okay?!" Yeeeeeesssss...! Hmmm, she came up and said, "Did you see? The Japanese guy chickened out and turned back. Yes, I noticed. 😂 What was down there? Actually, it was the wall paintings in a very small narrow space. She found it a bit spooky but took photos of all the walls and even made a video! It would definitely have been worth going down there😬🙉. I have to say, hats off, I would never have dared to do that, and from today on, her nickname is no longer Grisu, but Indy Jones.

After visiting numerous temples, we were quite exhausted 😶 and returned to the resort in the evening! We wanted to go to the pool. On the way to the pool, I observed the fish 🐠 in the lake. And what do I see, another little 🐊 alligator. I took a photo of it and then it calmly swam away. I asked at the reception if there were more alligators in the lake. They said yes, they live in some pipes and only come to the lake to eat fish🐠😜. Yeah, right, how does he know that so precisely 🤓?

Since we are only staying one day in Ayutthaya, we wanted to visit the night market earlier. The manager of the resort said it was a food market. Hm, no, we're not interested. What else could he recommend? His eyes started to sparkle and he said, "Take a tuk-tuk to several temples. They are beautifully illuminated and look dreamy." I quickly replied, no, no, no, more temples 😩🙈🙉 for today!!!! He laughed and said okay, then not! We then wandered around the resort and are now preparing for our onward journey to Chiang Mai.

We wish you a wonderful day, best regards Anke and Daniela😊

PS: Sascha, we raised a toast to you today 🍻🎉, once again all the best and lots of love to you!